Original reporting on little-known U.S. government funded foreign aid projects, so-called "drug war" initiatives, and overseas business subsidies.

Commentary

07/02/2014

While my creation of U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has been a fruitful venture -- both product-wise and profit-wise -- I believe it is time to shift my energies toward other initiatives.

My reporting here immediately had been noticed by WND.com, and since then I have increasingly devoted greater efforts selling original articles to that organization than writing new ones for the Monitor. Indeed, I would like to draw your attention to my WND author page, where the bulk of my recent and future reporting can and will be found.

The Monitor certainly has proved to be a positive experience in digital, independent reporting, as had been its predecessor site, The Peacock Report (which is archived here).

From its inception three years ago, the Monitor has produced hundreds of research-based articles ahead of the competition, at times beating even major media organizations; indeed, news giant CNN -- specifically White House Correspondent Brianna Keilar via CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer -- blatantly stole information from this site (see "CNN Rips Off U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor Story on Biden's Plush Parisian Jaunt.")

Cryptome.org likewise drove thousands of visitors here by linking to my numerous articles on matters specific to national security and U.S.-funded foreign operations.

- See more at: http://www.tradeaidmonitor.com/2012/04/kenya-sees-spike-in-obama-administration-funded-projects.html#sthash.pasFPkIc.dpuf

Similary, bestselling author Andrew McCarthy used (and credited) Monitor material in a piece he wrote for National Review online.

There have been many other notable successes and forms of recognition by outside sources, but it's time I get down to business with other creative ventures (besides, I still have to bag about a ton of leaves in my backyard that I did not get to last autumn).

Most importantly, I need to finish writing Play Dead, Roll Over, my book-length memoir-in-progress. For a taste of the creative nonfiction work, check out an excerpt via Gravel: A Literary Journal and Crime Factory #15. If you are interested in these and other literary (and largely non-political) pursuits, follow me on Twitter via @sgpeacock.

While I will continue to make the Monitor publicly accessible, for now -- if not permanently -- I will cease posting new articles here.

Stay in touch. Like I said, I expect to continue contributing to WND, so check out my author page for updates.

For those interested in my political writing and in conservative/libertarian issues in general, please follow me on Twitter via @tradeaidmonitor.

In addition to my various writing pursuits, I am likewise pursuing voice-over, acting, and emcee/ring announcer opportunities. I have started to update my YouTube page for that reason, though admittedly it is a work-in-progress.

Best wishes, and thank you all for your support and interest. -- Steve Peacock

02/03/2014

Thus far there is just one "witness" scheduled to testify Wednesday (2/5/14) at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, which is titled "Al-Qaeda’s Resurgence in Iraq: A Threat to U.S. Interests."

Mr. Brett McGurk, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq and Iran from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, apparently is going to help sort out the situation for this critical committee.

Upon reading the hearing title, unconsciously I released a barely audible “Uh-oh,” wondering where such a hearing might lead us.

While it is too early to make assumptions about the direction of U.S. policy on Iraq, I could not help but wonder if there are people in the federal government who might seek to step up U.S. involvement there.

Even though it is unlikely the Obama administration will re-deploy troops, you can bet that billions in awards to private contractors will (continue to) flow, if not magnify.

Committee Chairman Royce’s statement on the hearing:

Al-Qaeda controls more territory today than it ever has before, and much of that is in western Iraq where it has recently captured significant cities. These terrorists continue to exploit sectarian conflicts that the Iraqi government has failed to resolve, and Iraq is now on the verge of civil war. Our hearing will examine al-Qaeda's resurgence in Iraq and its threat to regional and global security.

That reminds me: I’ve been meaning to finally buy a copy of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People by Peter Van Buren. Why? Check out Van Buren’s blog description of the book:

From a State Department insider, the first book recounting our misguided efforts to rebuild Iraq—a shocking and rollicking true-life cross between Catch-22, Dispatches and The Ugly American.

Charged with rebuilding Iraq, would you spend taxpayer money on a sports mural in Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhood to promote reconciliation through art? How about an isolated milk factory that cannot get its milk to market? Or a pastry class training women to open cafés on bombed-out streets without water or electricity?

01/20/2014

As you may have noticed, activity here at U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has been at a minimum, but fear not -- I continue to investigate federal spending, particularly foreign aid-related ventures, and I intend to continue sheeding light on otherwise un- or under-reported taxpayer-funded endeavors.

But doing so while simulataneously working as an educator and as a freelance writer sure makes it difficult to give this blog the attention it deserves.

As my personal priority must be to support my family, I have sold some of my best articles to WND.com, which -- since the very month the Monitor emerged some three years ago -- has recognized the value of the reporting via this site. Indeed, WND Founder Joseph Farah was so impressed with one of the first Monitor articles that he bought exclusive rights to it for 48 hours.

I have since sold many dozens of articles to WND, which I am indeed allowed to reprint here two days after publication; however, with competiting demands with which to contend, the Monitor -- temporarily -- has taken a back seat to other priorities.

I look forward to resuming a more consistent publication schedule here at the Monitor.

08/20/2013

To many other conservatives (and liberals as well), the Obama administration's refusal to cut off foreign aid to Egypt initially was surprising if not insulting. How dare the president and his many Democratic and Republican supporters on this issue fail to take immediate action! Despite deposed Egyptian President Morsi's shortcomings, he was democratically elected, wasn't he? No wonder the Egyptians are rebelling.

Rather than reiterate the well-reasoned positions that conservative writers Andrew C. McCarthy and Thomas Sowell have taken on the situation, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor urges readers to deeply explore the very convincing and eye-opening commentaries from these men.

Things are not what they seem in Egypt. Those who support the "democratically elected" Morsi do not share the American concept of democracy and freedom. Islamist radicals are attempting to retake the government, and it very well may be in U.S. national interests to steer far clear of this turmoil.

While congressional and White House debate over foreign aid in general and U.S. assistance to Egypt specifically is necessary (is there really a debate at the moment?), let's not be naive about what is happening in Egypt.

07/23/2013

Steve Peacock from his home office speaking with Denver radio talk-show host Peter Boyles.

Today I was tracked down by Denver radio talk-show host Peter Boyles (710KNUS), who took note of my reporting primarily via WND on the issues of drones -- unmanned aerial systems -- and other forms of electronic surveillance. We spoke for nearly 20 minutes about some of the following articles, while Mr. Boyles also allowed me to briefly pitch my website U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor and talk about my background as a Capitol Hill reporter covering the final years of the Clinton Administration through the start of the George W. Bush Administration.

Many thanks to Mr. Boyles for this amazing opportunity. He expressed a strong desire to have me return as a guest on his show, to which I am very much looking forward. -- S.P.

Obama deploying drones around U.S. -- Contracts show units
to be used to enforce regulations (WND; July 21, 2013)

05/04/2013

The extrication of U.S. Special Forces injured in African military
ventures soon will provide contractors with an additional revenue
stream, now that the Obama administration plans to keep such vendors on
stand-by, 24/7, for cross-continent airborne mobilization.

While the Pentagon’s reliance on private vendors to support
international military operations is nothing new, plans to station such
providers specific to such a large swath of Africa does deviate from
prior procurement actions.

The Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support
initiative will rely on outside assistance in the event that soldiers of
U.S. Special Operations Command-Africa sustain traumatic medical
emergencies, thereby requiring urgent transportation out of hostile
zones.

Indeed, SOCOM-Africa places such urgency on its anticipated use of
such Casualty Evacuation, or CASEVAC, services that, at a minimum,
contractors must be capable of launching an airborne response with only a
three hour notice.

Despite this urgency, the vendor securing that contract largely will
engage in cargo- and personnel airlift activities, plus a limited number
of air-drop missions.

The “most likely” locations for such operations are Algeria, Burkina
Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria,
Senegal and Tunisia, according to the U.S. Transportation Command
solicitation.

Kenya, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda also fall within the Primary
Operating Area, or POA, of this endeavor, the USTRANSCOM document says.

SOCOM-Africa will enable this expedited response-capability by
stationing the contractor in Burkina Faso, a landlocked West African
nation, it says.

A search of prior Tactical Combat Casualty Care and CASEVAC
solicitations available via the FedBizOpps system shows that USSOCOM and
other Department of Defense units typically and primarily seek only
training and equipment.

Rather than soliciting continent-wide provision of emergency medical
and flight assistance, those contracting actions generally have sought
assistance to enable combatant commands to provide themselves with such
medical assistance.

One USSOCOM contracting action representative of the government’s
acquisition of CASEVAC “kits” and trauma-management training, for
example, described a critical need for Special Operations combat forces to obtain new techniques and technology in support of “ongoing operations worldwide.”

Another Special Ops solicitation
from late last year revealed a $40 million, two-year contract extension
awarded to Tribalco, LLC, a Bethesda, Maryland-based maker of CASEVAC
and other “soldier-survival” equipment.

USTRANSCOM did not disclose an estimated cost of the Africa-centric CASEVAC procurement.

In other U.S. military procurement actions specific to Africa:

The Defense Logistics Agency on April 12 issued a request for bids
to provide the U.S. Air Force with 547,500 gallons of No. 2 diesel fuel
“for ongoing deliveries to Niamey Airport, Niger, (Africa).”

The U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command, or NAVFAC, announced it intends
to spend up to $25 million for power plant upgrades at Camp Lemonnier,
Djibouti (CLDJ), Africa; however, despite acknowledging in an earlier
document the estimated cost of the Caterpillar generators, a partly
redacted no-bid Justification & Approval document blacked out the
final award amount. It offered no explanation for the redaction .

NAVFAC additionally began soliciting bids to build a cold-storage
food warehouse and a separate galley to store P-218 anti-malarial drug
reserves, representing another potential $25 million contracting
endeavor at CLDJ.

NAVFAC on April 12 revealed
that it awarded a $33 million contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root to
“perform base operating services at CLDJ and occasionally other
locations within Africa.” Despite announcing the KBR contract this month, the Navy unit actually awarded it in December, the document shows.

This article originally appeared via WND April 28. Under prior agreement, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.

04/01/2013

Over a month ago U.S. Trade & Aid Monitorbroke the story on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's pricey trip to Paris, during which time taxpayers shelled out $585,000 and $322,000, respectively, for hotel rooms, limos, and other vehicles. VPOTUS Biden and his staff spent those taxpayer funds during his one-day Parisian journey to meet French President Francois Hollande.

CNN this past week reported on the trip -- using the same documents that the Monitor had discovered via painstaking database research -- and tooted its own horn on international TV as if that were its own discovery.

CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer talked about this "amazing, amazing discovery" (of theirs) and how shocked they were to have found these rare documents. Blitzer asked CNN White House Correspondent Brianna Keilar about her unparalleled reporting skills in uncovering this rarity, and they both speculated that the government perhaps did not mean to upload the documents to the federal database.

“We’re getting an extremely, extremely rare glimpse at how
much it costs when Vice President Joe Biden goes traveling,” Blitzer proclaimed.
“Brianna we’ve covered a lot of presidential and vice presidential trips, but
this is pretty amazing.”

“It kind of makes you wonder if this information was put out
accidentally,” Keilar later says. “I did a search myself of the past 365 days
where obviously the president and vice president have gone on other foreign
trips and I could find no contracts in addition for any of those visits.”

I figured that maybe she may have missed, for example, the documents I previously found specific to President Obama's and Biden's million-dollar stay in Colombia (the scandalous one when Secret Service agents were caught hanging out with hookers). In that instance I was smarter about my research, and had uploaded those contracting documents to the Monitor website rather than linking from my page to the government site (which I had done, not so coincidentally, to prevent other media from stealing my story!)

A quick search today of FedBizOpps reveals that Keilar was less than forthcoming about her supposed "research." The Colombia documents are indeed still publicly available. Here they are:

I would link to additional, existing procurement data, but I have other more productive things to do instead -- such as performing some good old-fashioned reporting without ripping off some professional blogger-journalist and claiming it's my own work. -- Steve Peacock

McCarthy, it should be noted, is not your average columnist. Indeed, check out his bio:

Andrew C. McCarthy was a top federal prosecutor involved in some of the
most significant cases in recent history. Decorated with the Justice
Department’s highest honors, he retired from government in 2003, after
helping launch the 9/11 investigation. He is one of America’s most
persuasive voices on national security issues and author of the
bestsellers Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad andThe Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. Currently, he is a contributing editor at National Review and a columnist for Pajamas Media.

I am honored that Mr. McCarthy has recognized the value of U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor, and look forward to reading Spring Fever and his other works.